Brother Love

I knelt to peer at my brother’s face

In the light of the early morn,

The face of the man I’d grown to love

Since the day we both were born,

And I watched a passer-by shake his head

And quietly walk away

As my heart was stilled with a fearful thought,

So still my brother lay;

And the lights shone out through the scattered trees

Where the blood-drawn ghouls were stood,

And I felt the pain in the morning rain

Where the car lay on its hood.

 

But something stirred in the tangled wreck

And my brother’s eyes were wide,

‘Forgive me, John, but I’m almost gone,’

He said, in a sad aside.

‘Just tell me, how is the girl you saw,

Thrown out as we hit the tree,

I’d turn my head if I didn’t know

It would be the end of me.’

‘She’s right,’ I said, ‘just a cut or two,’

And bit my nail to the quick,

To glance at the shape beyond the trees

That lay with a broken neck.

 

‘Don’t worry, mate, we’ll get you out,

There’s only a slight delay.’

I faltered then, and I almost cried,

He seemed so far away;

And blood was thick on his face and hair,

His breath was coming fast,

I prayed to God and the stars above

And I cursed myself at the last.

To be so powerless, kneeling there,

My brother and friend to save,

And he caught up in the throes of death

With a twisted car his grave.

 

‘You wonder who she could be,’ he said,

And twisted his face to smile,

‘My own sweet love, and her name is Jay,’

He said, in a little while.

‘And I know you think I’m a crazy fool

With a wife as good as mine…’

And I thought he was, but I didn’t say

And I gave no outward sign.

‘But I love my wife, I really do…

I love them both the same!

For the sake of the children, keep your peace,’

For the sake of their mother’s name.’

 

I glanced at Jay in the gathering dawn

And I saw she’d found her peace,

And the tears sprang into my brother’s eyes

As he sensed his love’s release.

‘So she’s gone,’ he sobbed in a broken cry

And the twisted metal clung,

As his head lay out through the open door

In the tragedy of the young.

But the fading light from the morning star

Shone back from my brother’s eyes,

And I shivered there as I held his hand

In the wake of my feeble lies.

 

‘Don’t blame the girl, don’t blame my wife,

It’s I and the world to blame,

My love’s not kept in a mantle jar

It’s an ever-burning flame.

We’ve been so happy in other days

Whenever the world was free,

I fell asleep at the wheel tonight

To dream of the open sea,

To dream of the days we brothers shared

In the carefree bloom of youth,

When all we built were our memories,

And sought for the burning truth.’

 

‘We sought for the burning truth,’ he smiled,

‘Far better we’d let it be,

The truth can ruin the ones we love,

The truth has ruined me.

But kiss the kids for their Daddy’s sake

And say that I’m called away,

And if they ask, I love them all,

You’ll know what it’s best to say…

Love was my only stock in trade,’

He said, in a voice so weak,

And died, as the sun rose slowly up

And the tears rolled down my cheek.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Bubo]

Oh so haunting, and such a terrible thing to happen, not only lose a brother, but to cover the fact he
was with someone else...........such tender words though......I found this heart breaking..........
so many lines I loved that flow throughout.